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"Foreign agent" label still being used to stigmatise criticism in Russia

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Activists stand outside the office of non-governmental body Golos, during a protest against the organisation's foreign relations in Moscow, 5 April 2013

REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

This statement was originally published on hrw.org on 6 February 2017.

For the past four years, the Kremlin has sought to stigmatize criticism or alternative views of government policy as disloyal, foreign-sponsored, or even traitorous. It is part of a sweeping crackdown to silence critical voices that has included new legal restrictions on the internet, on freedom of expression, on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, and on other fundamental freedoms.

An enduring, central feature has been the 2012 law requiring independent groups to register as "foreign agents" if they receive any foreign funding and engage in broadly defined "political activity." In Russia, the term "foreign agent" can be interpreted by the public only as "spy" or "traitor." To date, Russia's Justice Ministry has designated 158 groups as "foreign agents," courts have levied staggering fines on many groups for failing to comply with the law, and about 30 groups have shut down rather than wear the "foreign agent" label.

Organizations targeted include groups that work on human rights, the environment, LGBT issues, and health issues, groups that do polling about social issues. A court forced the closure of AGORA Association, one of Russia's leading human rights organizations, in response to a Justice Ministry suit alleging that the group violated the "foreign agents" law and carried out work beyond its mandate.

The ministry has removed its "foreign agent" tag from over 20 groups, acknowledging that they had stopped accepting foreign funding. Accordingly, as of February 6, 2017, the official list of active "foreign agents" consisted of 103 groups.

The 'Foreign Agent' Law

Under the 2012 law, groups must register with the Justice Ministry as "foreign agents" if they receive even a minimal amount of funding from any foreign sources, governmental or private, and engage in "political activity." The definition of political activity under the law is so broad and vague that it effectively extends to all aspects of advocacy and human rights work. Initially, the law required all nongovernmental organizations that met these criteria to register with the ministry and to identify themselves as "foreign agents" in all their public materials, with legal consequences for failure to comply.

Russia's human rights groups resolutely boycotted the law, calling it "unjust" and "slanderous." In 2013, Russia's then-federal ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, challenged the law in Russia's Constitutional Court. In 2014, the court upheld the law, finding that there were no legal or constitutional grounds for contending that the term "foreign agent" had negative connotations from the Soviet era and that, therefore, its use was "not intended to persecute or discredit" organizations. The court also found that the "foreign agent" designation was in line with the public interest and the interest of state sovereignty.

Two years of mounting pressure by the authorities, court proceedings, and massive fines did not succeed in forcing groups to voluntarily register as foreign agents. In May 2014 Russia's parliament amended the "foreign agents" law to authorize the Justice Ministry to register groups as "foreign agents" without their consent.

In May 2016, parliament adopted another set of amendments to the law, expanding the controversial definition of "political activity" to include, among other things, any attempt by an independent group to influence public policy, regardless of the group's mandate.

To date, the registry of "foreign agents" includes the following organizations:

Center of Independent Researchers of the Altai Republic - June 10, 2015

Leader of at least 1 NGO faces criminal charges personally:

Women of Don (Rostov region) - criminal proceeding is in process. Chair Valentina Cherevatenko faces up to two years in prison for "malicious evasion of the duty to file the documents required for inclusion in the register of nonprofit organizations performing the functions of a foreign agent."

Since 2012, the Russian authorities have intensified a crackdown on freedom of expression, selectively casting certain kinds of criticism of the government as threats to state security and public stability and introducing significant restrictions to online expression and invasive surveillance of online activity.

Throughout the year there were reports of attacks, threats, censorship, arrests, and prison sentences against both journalists and ordinary citizens who had posted or shared politically sensitive information online.

The Russian authorities detained at least 61 people in different cities across the country for holding unauthorized protests ahead of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Sochi on 7 February 2014.

A new bill provides for the immediate blocking of websites with content regarded by the prosecutor’s office as extremist. Inciting hatred or terrorist acts are already grounds for blocking. Now, urging people to participate in unauthorized protests would also be viewed as "extremist."

Charges against dozens of protesters in connection with the protest on the eve of President Vladimir Putin’s 2012 inauguration are "inappropriate" and "disproportionate," according to a panel of independent experts. Twenty seven people are facing "mass rioting" charges in connection with the protest on May 6, 2012.

Russia is the sixth deadliest country in the world for journalists in the last 16 years. Moreover, as impunity for attacks on journalists in Russia remains the general rule and the vast majority of cases remain unsolved, the true tally could be even higher.

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